The
postwar development of Athens was an important step in the
modernization of Greece. The economic boom, the emergence of a new
middle class, and the urbanization process, took place in a very
short period. Contrary to what has happened in most European
countries, urbanization in Greece was not based on top- down urban
planning, but on the ad-hoc repetition of a single building type: the
polykatoikia (i.e.
apartment building). The polykatoikia
had a significant contribution in
the urban and economic development of the country. Moreover, it had a
dominant role in the formation of modern subjectivity in Greece. The
workshop focuses on the development of Greek modernism through the
architecture of middle class housing and the representations of urban
dwelling in cinema. The analysis of architectural design takes into
consideration the layout of the typical apartment, and the way that
the repetition of a single building type has produced the city. The
film analysis takes place in three ways: First, as a cinematic
archaeology that renders visible social and urban transformations of
the past; second, through the understanding of the methods that
cinema has promoted, or put into question, specific lifestyles and
ideologies; and finally, through film form and the analysis of its
cultural significance.
Workshop
by Panos Dragonas
University
of Patras Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow, Hellenic
Studies
Respondent:
M. Christine Boyer, Architecture
Seeger
Center for Hellenic Studies-Princeton
University
Friday,
November 18, 2016 1:30 p.m
